Zarine joined UNRISD in 2005, to work with the research coordinator of the Programme on Identities, Conflict and Cohesion. She was specializing in ethnic and national identity and gender equality, and her research interests included: emerging/mixed identities and social cohesion; human rights and the construction of identity; identity development for second-generation immigrant youth; and gender roles and relations, with a focus on post-Soviet Russia.
Zarine holds a MSc in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Russian and Sociology from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her MSc thesis addressed the relationship between the effects of economic transition on women, the Soviet legacy and the rise of trafficking in women from post-Soviet Russia.
Prior to joining UNRISD, Zarine worked for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Project at the Post-Conflict Assessment Unit of UNEP, the ILO, and the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. She authored a report on gender equality in the Russian Federation in 2006, and recently published an article entitled
"Putting Gender Back on the Policy Agenda: Gender Equality and Political Participation in the Russian Federation".